The newly published winter issue of Wider Horizons, Lethbridge College’s award-winning alumni and community magazine, tackles a critical issue facing the community – the opioid crisis.
The idea for this special issue came from a graduate of the college’s Criminal Justice program who, a few years ago, suggested creating a whole issue dedicated to fentanyl and how the growth of opioid and other drug use in southern Alberta has changed the working world of so many Lethbridge College alumni.
To provide a complete report, Wider Horizons editor Lisa Kozleski connected with Alberta Health Services’ Apple magazine publisher Terry Bullick and editor Shelley Boettcher. They worked together over several months, sharing information and content to provide an in-depth look at the crisis affecting so many across the province.
“This is not your typical alumni magazine cover story,” says Kozleski, “but we knew it was an important story to tell. We are so grateful for the alumni who were willing to share the stories of how their working worlds have changed because of the crisis. Thanks also go out to college leadership for supporting this effort, and the great team at Apple for working with us to educate and inspire as many readers as possible.”
The winter issues of Wider Horizons and Apple, both of which are in circulation, feature an extended editorial package on the opioid crisis in Alberta, with contributions from both magazines. The two editorial teams first connected in the spring of 2018 at the Alberta Magazine Publishers Association conference, and they quickly realized they could work together to reach broader audiences with this important provincial story.
“Our goal was to give people a greater understanding of how illegal drugs affect the lives of users,” says Bullick. “And we wanted to show how dealing with illegal drugs takes an entire community.”
For the college’s main contribution, Kozleski worked with photographer Rob Olson to create a feature focused on how the opioid epidemic has changed the working world of Lethbridge College graduates in careers ranging from policing and corrections to nursing, child and youth care, and communications and media. Wider Horizons took the unusual step of printing four different covers as a way to reflect the far-reaching effects of the crisis and discussed the partnership in the editor’s message.
The Apple team provided a first-hand look at addiction and the southern Alberta response to it in an in-depth feature by writer Curtis Gillespie with photography from David Guenther. The combined content, includes additional facts and information about drug use and programs, appears in 30,000 copies of Wider Horizons and 140,000 copies of Apple — and is expected to reach more than 600,000 readers.
Apple is distributed free on newsstands and in AHS sites across the province; online it’s at applemag.ca. Copies of Wider Horizons can be found on Lethbridge College’s campus, bundled with the current issue of Lethbridge Living or online at widerhorizons.ca.
LISTEN: Wider Horizons editor Lisa Kozleski speaks about the special opioid crisis edition of the magazine: